I think you give the right wing media too much credit. Who listens to talk radio anymore, just the same right wing hearing what they want to hear. Whose minds wouldn’t be changed no matter what. Perhaps we did have to do something, that is to take care of those who were uninsured. But I do not think the ACA was the right way to go. The ACA’s dynamics were written and promises said based on all the changes it, the law, people and companies wouldn’t change their habits, their routines from what they were doing prior to the law being passed.
But people adjust, companies adjust. What made sense for some companies to offer their employees health insurances prior to the law, might not make sense to do so after the law was passed. The additional mandates that health insurance must now offer also drives up the price. You can expect additional coverage of dependents, say from 18 to 26 to be able to stay on their parents insurance not to drive up the premium. Having to cover everyone with pre-existing conditions will also drive up the premiums to those who didn’t have those conditions. There is plenty of other examples, but you get the idea.
The same can be said of taxes the same as premiums. If each of us had to wait until April 15th and then pay one’s full taxes instead of having them taken out each paycheck there would be a massive uprising in the streets over taxation. I agree that most people do not know the difference between gross and net income. Money people do not see is not missed.
I still think a VA style system would have been a better way to take care of the uninsured. Not the whole scale chances brought on with this law. But it is here and I am willing to live with it. There are 5 different doctors the wife and me go to see that are either retiring or going to another country to work. They cite Obamacare for their reason for either retiring or leaving. I never realized how many doctors we have from places like Canada, India and Asia practicing in this country. How many of them will remain? I don’t know and no one else does either. I fear this fight over the ACA will go on and on and on much like the fight over abortion.
As for Obama, I really do not see all that much difference between him and Bush the 2nd. President that I have experienced and was old enough to know what they were doing and their policies that I like and thought of the most were Eisenhower, JFK, Clinton and Reagan. LBJ somewhere in the middle and the rest I would call second or third tier.